Ernst Ludwig Kirchner painting thought to be lost for more than a century goes on display in Basel
A painting by the German Expressionist artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner that was thought to have been lost for decades has gone on display at the Kunstmuseum Basel, more than 100 years after it was last exhibited.
Tanz im Varieté (Dance at the Varieté, 1911) was restored at the museum over a number of months, and has now been added to the museum’s Paarlauf (Pairings) exhibition. It is expected to remain on display until July 2027.
Previously only known through photographs taken by Kirchner, Tanz im Varieté unexpectedly came up for auction last year at Ketterer Kunst in Munich and was purchased by the Swiss-based Im Obersteg Foundation for around €7m. The foundation’s collection—drawn from the acquisitions of the Swiss father and son collectors Karl and Jürg Im Obersteg—is on permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel.
The oil painting, which depicts a group of people performing the cakewalk—a dance that originated among African American slaves in the 19th century—is last thought to have been exhibited in Berlin in 1923. Tanz im Varieté is known to have been bought by a private collector in Munich in 1944, 11 years after Kirchner’s art was declared “degenerate” by the Nazis. It was moved to the countryside of the neighbouring German state of Baden-Württemberg for safekeeping, though discovered in 1945 in a crate by French soldiers who are said to have damaged it, with the painting struck by a bullet and pierced by a bayonet. The soldiers left the crate and painting behind, with the work remaining in the same family ownership until its recent sale.
After the Second World War, the painting was restored at the Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, in southwestern Germany, with evidence of the historical damage now only visible on the rear of the canvas. The two main tasks for restorers at the Kunstmuseum Basel involved stabilising the paint layer and cleaning the surface, guided by a digital reconstruction of the work.
Géraldine Meyer, the curator of the Im Obersteg collection, describes Tanz im Varieté as “a major painting from Kirchner’s Dresden period, capturing the dynamic atmosphere of modern urban nightlife”. She adds that “the acquisition of this painting is particularly significant, as it fills a long-standing gap in the collection and reflects the historical relationship between Kirchner and the foundation’s founder, Karl Im Obersteg, who actively promoted the artist but never acquired one of his works himself.”
